Sebastian Bürgel is the CTO and Co-Founder of Validity Labs and HOPR. He received his PhD from ETH Zurich, and then directed his curiosity and energy towards blockchain, smart contracts, and other decentralized technologies. His previous project, SONECT, a mobile cash solution, drew the attention of one of Switzerland's largest financial institutions, PostFinance. Sebastian is a frequent speaker at major blockchain conferences, and is one of the world's leading decentralized application architects. He has built applications for industries such as insurance, real estate, finance, biomedical, and others